December

Thurs. 1st Dec.

Mamma, Max & I dined at Ms. O. at 6. to Willard's hall aftern. to
sell at her stalls in a fair for St. Matthews Church.
Cd with Jinny McL.
on the Hunts (Sec.) Miss Beal, Mrs. Emory, Mrs. Cameron, Mrs. L.
Irving.

Willard's Hotel was one of Washington's best known hotels. It was there
that Ulysses S. Grant stayed when he first arrived in Washington.

At the new house all day. Ate at the house of Mrs. John Davis with
Mrs. Robeson, Miss Stout, Mr Phillips who took me in, Woodbury Blaire,
the expert, Dr. Hamilton, Mrs Robeson - met the President, Arthur, very
late, as we wanted to walk and stay a moment, but he talked to me.

The President is Chester A. Arthur, who became president following the
assination of James A. Garfield.

In the ??? to
look for the $50 that the old Mrs. P.C. Brooks sent me. Lunched at
the home of Mrs. Hopkins as each day of the week. Miss Knight called
& Mrs. & Miss Hack.

Sat. 10th

Mrs. Henry Adams cd. Dined at the French Legation. 18 people. Mme
Outrey was sick and could not appear and Countess Lewenhaupt took her
place. The de la Barca's (the Spanish Minister), de Zamacona (Mexican
Min.), Mrs Martinez and her daughter, Miss de Noqueiras, Mrs. Berard
among others was there, and others whose names escape me.

Francisco Barca del Corral was Spanish Minister to Washington from 1881
through 1883. Mrs Henry Adams referred to his wife as being
"stout, jolly, and common."

Sunday 11.

To church. I returned with Mr. Woodbury Blair. At night Papa and I
went to the Robeson's. The presented me to the Belgian Minister, the
Count d'Hannetam?, the Secretary of State (Blaine), Mrs. Strong and
Belmont.

Monday 12.

All day in the new house as is customary.
Lunch here with Mr. Hopkins.

Tuesday 13.

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Lunch here. The de Zamacona's (Mexican min.) visit.

Wednesday 14.

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Thursday 15.

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Friday 16.

We left Mrs. Penn's house at 1800 F. and came here, 1777 Massachusetts
Av. M. and Mme. Outrey came for the afternoon and Mrs. Hopkins to
give advice on the general arrangements. Papa went away to N.Y. Min.
Stout also came.

Saturday 17.

Helene left the Robeson house and came here.

Sunday 18.

To the Church of the Epiphany with Mrs. Hopkins. In the afternoon
with Mama to see Mme Outrey, Bina and her daughter. Mrs Phillips and
Miss Lee, Jinny McLane and Ginny Pendleton. In the evening Mamma and I
went with the Hopkins, Miss Lee., Mr. Lowndes & Ch. Russell to the
Loring house and found it fastidious. We concluded the night Mrs.
Robeson's where it was crowded as usual.

George F. Pendleton was the senator from Ohio.
The Loring house is the house of Dr. George Bailey Loring(1817-1891), his second wife Anna (formerly Anna Smith
Hildreth), and his daughter Sally by his first wife
Mary Pickman Loring.
George Loring is one of the more interesting characters to pass regularly
through Amy's journal.
Perhaps the most concise and precise description of him is that of
Joan Maloney [17]:

The man so admired by his contemporaries was, in fact, a splendid example of
the venality of our Gilded Age.

Maloney describes in detail Loring's abuse of his wife's fortune and his theft
of his daughter Sally's inheritance, but more relavant here is his political and
Washington D.C. side.

Tiring of medicine at an early age, he became active in Democratic Party
politics and retired from his practice in 1850 when appointed postmaster of
Salem, Massachussetts by President Franklin Pierce. Sensing the the political
wind changes, he switched parties late in the Civil War, eventually winning
election to Congress as a Republican in 1876. He was an early and eager
booster for James G. Blaine. When Blaine became President Garfield's Secretary
of State he arranged for Loring's appointment as Commissioner of
Agriculture (on the day before Garfield's assisination), a position he held
until 1885, when he and most Republican office holders were swept out by
Grover Cleveland's defeat of James G. Blaine, who had won the nomination over
the incumbent Chester A. Arthur. When the Republicans returned to power in
1888 with the election of Benjamin Harrison, Blaine was unable to find Loring
the cabinet post he desired. He settled for the backwater post of Minister to
Portugal.

Loring had a knack for supporting losers. In addition to promoting Blaine, he
was an admirer of Jefferson Davis and later of George McClellan. He was a long
time colleague of General Benjamin "Beast" Butler, a political Civil War
general who did much to exacerbate the ill feelings between North and South
during his administration of occupied New Orleans. He died in debt following a
severe attack of diarrhea.

Mrs. Henry Adams did not seem to like Loring much. In her letter of
3 December 1882 to her father after mentioning she is having a dinner party
for the George B. Lorings she asks

Will Aunt Eunice ever speak to me again if you tell her we are to dine with
Dr. Loring? Neither Henry nor I ever spoke to him, but I called on his new
wife last week; she's quite pleasing and we met so often that it has grown to
be awkward not to call.

Monday 19.

I did not leave the house except to go to a grand reception in the
evening at Mrs. Blaine's for the presentation to the diplomatic core
of her husband's successor, Mr. Frelinghuysen, the new Secretary of
State. I was presented to him.

Tuesday 20.

Did not go out. The Misses Ogden visited us.

Wednesday 21.

Did not go out. Mrs. Craig Wadsworth lunched here. Visited by Mr.
Frelinghuysen and the Vicount de Noqueiras, among others.

Thursday 22.

Visited by the Lowndes and W. Blair and by Mrs. Keever?

Friday 23.

Bought various things for Christmas Eve.

Saturday 24.

Mrs. Wadsworth lunched with us as every day of
the week.

Sunday 25.

Mama gave me a bracelet of hers (?? and cameos) ?? gloves and a ??
of resin. Helene gave me a change purse. I gave her 69 books that I
had when I was a child in Paris that just arrived with the furniture,
and also a game. To Papa I gave two silver stickpins. Mama's gift was
not even bought. ??? to Augustine who spends his vacation with Uncle
John in Boston. At night we visited Mr. F. Roca de Togores. The
Loring's with Papa.

In a letter written on Christmas Day by Mrs. James G.
Blaine to her son, she says

... I interrupted myself in my letter
yesterday to take H to Mme Outrey's, whither she was to go to practice
a carol which her children and Ethel Robeson and Max Heard are to sing
to-morrow at eleven.

In the same letter she mentions that
Sackville-West had brought his daughter to call on the 23rd and that
it was her first call since her arrival in Washington on the previous
day.

Mrs. W. lunched with us. Visit by Mrs. Peter Parker and her son. Mlle
de Chambrun, Mrs. Adams came to ask me the favor of eating with them
at the place of Mrs Cameron and to go to the theatre to see "The
Vokeses" in "Cousin Joe" and "Fun in a fog." Amusing. It was a
party consisting of the two Adams, Mr. & Mrs. de Bildt, also Miss
Beale ate with us, but she did not go to the theatre because her
mother was sick.

In Mrs. Henry Adams Letters she writes on 1 January 1882

Friday some folks to dine, to adjourn to the Vokeses_Mrs.
Don Cameron and Aristarchi Bey, both ill, gave out just at the last,
so I got Miss Heard and Laughlin, and Mr. de Bildt and Miss Beale were
on hand. Tell the Gurneys I give in to "Fun in a Fog"; I nearly had
hysterics. General Sherman sat in front mopping his tear-stained
face.